"Betty's a brick," agreed Rob emphatically, "the nicest girl I know, except you, but I can't imagine her planning scrapes. She's too much afraid of hurting somebody's feelings for that."
"She's not planning scrapes. Neithah of us want to do anything really bad. We only want to stir the seminary up a bit, and make it lively. We're growing up so fast that if we don't have some fun soon, it will be too late. In only a few moah yeahs I'll be through school, and then I'll have to be a débutante and settle down to be propah and young ladified. Mom Beck always used to be telling me to 'sit still and be a little lady,' and if there's anything I despised it was that."
"How fast the shadows grow long these afternoons," said Rob, presently, looking at his watch. "It's nearly time for me to go. Come on down to the measuring-tree. We mustn't forget our good-bye ceremony."
Seven Septembers were marked on the tall locust that they called their measuring-tree. It towered above a rustic seat half-way down the avenue. Lloyd laid one finger on the lowest notch and another on the next mark a few inches above it.
"There wasn't neahly so much difference in our heights when I was five and you six as there is now," she said, with a little sigh. "You're almost as tall as Papa Jack, and I'm only up to yoah shouldah. You're growing away from me so fast, Bobby."
Rob threw back his shoulders complacently. "Daddy says that is why I am so awkward; that my height is too much for a fourteen-year-old boy to manage gracefully. I'll soon be through growing at this rate. Maybe after a couple of years more I'll not have to change the mark on the tree."
"I should certainly hope so," cried Lloyd, "unless you want to be a giant in a side-show. Heah! Measuah me."
She stiffened herself against the trunk of the tree, standing as erect as possible, while he stuck the blade of his knife into the bark, so close to the top of her head that he almost pinned a lock of the light hair to the tree.
"You've grown a lot too, this last year, Lloyd," he said, looking down at her approvingly.
"Oh, Rob," she cried, with a quick, wistful look upward into his face. "I don't want to grow up. It would be so much nicah if we could stay children always."